On Tuesday morning, students with enough credits to have senior class standing took to Workday to register for their classes for the Fall 2025 semester. Students had an array of experiences, with several reporting loading times of more than five minutes.
Sophomore Sarah Anderson shares, “Registration went fairly well. I got all the classes on my plan after the loading screens that were two minutes each. Nothing really surprised me since I understood the system. The only issue is the slow wait time.” She adds that it “wasn’t bad at all.”
Junior Andrew Jamieson reports more of a struggle: “My experience was frustrating. It’s been a long morning. I had to wait ten minutes to make sure I got registered for the classes I need to graduate.”
Having registration on Workday is a significant departure from using Banner, which has been the default registration system for Fairfield University students for years.
To ease students into the new system, there have been a number of informational sessions and workshops, all aimed at helping students understand how to use Workday to create academic plans and, ultimately, to register for classes. On Monday night, Workday Student sent an email reminding students of the steps to take prior to their registration night.
The transition to Workday was announced in January 2025, and this is the first semester the new system is being used.
Junior McKenna Heaney explains, “I don’t think it was a Wifi problem. I think it crashed.” She added that it took about a half an hour to finish her registration process.
The Mirror reached out to the university’s Chief Information Officer Steven Gstalder who confirms a “very short system freeze, which caused a small number of students to have an issue hitting the registration button.” He adds, “We are working directly with these students to support changes they might need to make and also working with Workday to understand the root cause of the freeze.”
Others took to Fizz to complain. One post reads, “How is Workday gonna have the word ‘work’ in its name if it can’t even do that?”
Another says, “Workday is much better. I’m so glad it took me half an hour to register and get waitlisted for classes I need!!”
Some students who have yet to register report feeling anxious as a result of this morning. Sophomore Olivia Signore says, “I am frustrated that they changed it halfway through the year.”
Another sophomore, who wishes to remain anonymous, states, “I’m feeling stressed. I wish that we had more time to adjust to Workday.”
